Reviews @<strong>PC</strong>PRO FACEBOOK.COM/<strong>PC</strong>PRO can jump from 0% to 50% in 36 minutes, according to BlackBerry’s official measurements. All this is good news, but the KEYone didn’t excel in our video rundown tests (Wi-Fi off, screen set to 170cd/m2). It lasted for 12hrs 23mins, which is fine but unexceptional compared to the latest phones. The same can be said for this phone’s speed. In general, Android 7.1 speeds along, and it’s rare that you’re left waiting for something to load. Again I used my Nexus 6P as a benchmark and found that it kept pace. Arguably, that’s not enough. If you’re buying a premium phone, you expect premium performance, but here you’re getting a mid-range chip at best. The Snapdragon 625 processor inside the KEYone has eight cores running at 2GHz, but compared to the cheaper OnePlus 3T this is a generation behind – as the graphs for Geekbench 4 and GFXBench show. My one caveat is that Blackberry appears to have blocked transmission of results to Geekbench, so those figures are best estimates based on similarly specced phones. Camera action TCL has lavished a little more money on the camera, a 12-megapixel unit with phase-detect autofocus, a f/2.0 aperture and a dual-LED flash. Outside, in good light, it delivers shots of a similar quality to the classleading Google Pixel and Pixel XL (perhaps not a surprise, as it uses the same Sony IMX38 sensor as found in the Pixel). Indoors in low light, however, it’s a different story. Although colours are well preserved, details take on a soft, smeary appearance and anything moving will likely end up horribly blurred. Details in darker areas are also lost in a sea of shadow. Not great, and if you try to brighten things up with the exposure compensation control, you’ll find the result is even more blur. This is a device that’s badly missing optical image stabilisation, or OIS. This is reflected in its video performance as well: you’ll need a tripod to keep things stable, which is a shame when it can record video in 4K at 30fps. Naturally, this eats into the 32GB of storage, which is why it makes sense to take advantage of the microSD slot. This supports cards up to 2TB in size and is hot-swappable. Should you BUYone? The “should I buy one?” question is far easier to answer with the KEYone than with most phones: if you’re limping on with an old BlackBerry, or still hanker for physical keyboards, then this is a great upgrade. As a <strong>2017</strong> update of a classic design, it works well in almost every way. The built-in security tools – especially if you invest the extra in mobile device management software – should also make this an attractive Samsung Galaxy S8 Apple iPhone 7 OnePlus 3T Google Pixel BlackBerry KEYone ABOVE LEFT At nigh-on a centimetre thick, this phone feels bulky compared to its sleek rivals GFXBench Manhattan, offscreen (1080p) Moto G5 7 Samsung Galaxy S8 Apple iPhone 7 OnePlus 3T Google Pixel BlackBerry KEYone* Moto G5 10 Geekbench 4, multi-core 2,379 *Estimated result based on phones with similar specification Apple iPhone 7 Samsung Galaxy S8 OnePlus 3T Google Pixel BlackBerry KEYone* Google Pixel Samsung Galaxy S8 OnePlus 3T Apple iPhone 7 BlackBerry KEYone Moto G5 Geekbench 4, single-core Moto G5 578 900* *Estimated result based on phones with similar specification 3,000* 1,994 1,903 1,539 Battery life (video-rundown test) 4,<strong>274</strong> 4,101 784 45 48 626 784 5,652 63 16hrs 23mins 16hrs9fps 5mins 13hrs 22mins 13hrs 2mins 12hrs 24mins 11hrs 51mins 64 6,629 3,489 choice for businesses that handle sensitive data. But I can’t avoid the obvious criticisms. For £499, it should have a faster processor. The physical keyboard is well implemented, but will it really make you faster at responding to messages? Especially when you’re sacrificing screen space and adding girth to squeeze it in. I like the KEYone – and I suspect that BlackBerry devotees will grow to love it. But the vast majority of phone buyers would be better off saving around £100 and choosing the OnePlus 3T instead: it outscores the KEYone for value, battery life, performance and – probably, ironically – speed of typing. TIM DANTON ABOVE The keyboard is – on the whole – nicely designed, with a fingerprint reader built into the spacebar SPECIFICATIONS Octa-core 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor ● 3GB RAM ● Adreno 506 graphics ● 4.5in IPS screen, 1,080 x 1,620 resolution ● 32GB storage ● microSD slot (up to 256GB) ● 12MP/8MP rear/front camera ● 802.11ac Wi-Fi ● Bluetooth 4.2 ● NFC ● USB-C connector ● 3,505mAh battery ● Android 7.1 ● 72.4 x 9.4 x 149mm (WDH) ● 180 ● 1yr warranty 54
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